LARKANA: Pakistan Peoples Party’s candidate for PS-11 Jamil Soomro who lost by-election to Grand Democratic Alliance’s Moa­zzam Abbasi has accused Election Commission of Pakistan of having failed to hold free and fair election and announced he will challenge the result in election tribunal and Supreme Court with plenty of proofs.

He said at a press conference at Larkana Press Club here on Mon­day that the federal government attempted to make by-election controversial by getting state institutions involved in the polling process.

He said that he was still collecting evidence and once armed with enough proofs he would knock at the doors of appropriate forums. Certain pieces of evidence had already been gathered, he said.

He said that district returning officer, returning officer and presiding officers were under pressure and in spite of making complaints through WhatsApp they remained unmoved while the complaints of his opponents were heard promptly.

He said that he had complained to the quarters concerned about delay in the start of polling process at certain women’s polling stations but in vain, therefore, he decided he would soon move different forums for legal remedy after consultation with his legal team.

He pointed towards complaints lodged by presiding officers for delayed polling process on the pretext of absence of female staff.

He accused Prime Minister Imran Khan of involving state institutions in the by-election to make it controversial. “We respect sacrifices of army and Rangers for the country and want to see them [national institutions] apolitical,” he said.

He said JUI-F’s Maulana Nasir Mehmood Soomro along with his partymen was allowed to go inside a polling station in Ghulam Bhutto village but he [Jamil Soomro] was denied entry.

He said the returning officer had declined to entertain his application for recounting while the ECP had rejected Farhatullah Babar’s request for extending polling time. He was optimistic that re-polling on PS-11 would be held as they [PPP] were going to court with valid and enough proofs of rigging. “We are committed to fulfilling promises made with voters during election. He was constantly in touch with his polling agents who had also pointed towards rigging.

“We will also opt for ‘thumb impression’ verification of voters as PPP had reports that outsiders had cast votes at certain polling station on the day.”

Aftab Nek Mohammad Bhutto, convener of organising committee of PPP Larkana city and others were present at the press conference.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2019